Day 237: 1 Corinthians 16:1-24

“Be on guard. Stand firm in the faith. Be courageous. Be strong. And do everything with love.” - ‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭16:13-14‬ ‭NLT‬‬

These two verses have it all when it comes to practical advice for living as a Christian. I love these five so much that I pray them over my son every day. Here is how it breaks down:

On guard - there are no off-days as Christians; we have to be ready

Stand on faith - not on our own efforts, but Jesus’

Courageous - we need to be brave and unintimidated by the world

Strong - this is the same Greek word used for Jesus and John the Baptist as they grew up; I'd say we want what they had

Love - wanting what is spiritually best for us and others (not just what we want)

On another note, the older I get, the more refreshing the ends of Paul's letters become to me. I love seeing the teams that God gave him in order to do ministry all across the Mediterranean. 

I'm also encouraged by the tone of endearment he gave. These weren't just people Paul had assembled to do his bidding. He saw them as family members worth his sacrifice, people he wanted to see thrive in their pursuit of Jesus.

Our challenge for today is to realize that we won't accomplish the above list of five without each other and our Advocate, Jesus.

Day 236: 1 Corinthians 15:29-58

“Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.” - 1 Corinthians‬ ‭15:58‬ ‭NASB‬‬

This is such a fantastic verse to share with those who are struggling to hold on. The very thought of becoming immovable strikes us with the courage to face whatever is to come. It is the Greek word ametakinētos, which can also be translated as not to be moved from place to place. (LSJ) When we stand with Jesus, we will not need to stand anywhere else for this life and the one to come!

Yet still, how can we stand so assured, knowing that our work for Jesus isn’t useless (all for nothing)? Resurrection is yet again the answer. The hope of new bodies. A new heaven and a new earth. A day when all things will be made new (see Revelation 21:1-7).

C.S. Lewis’ thoughts fit well here: “He (God) knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you can. One day (perhaps in another world, but perhaps far sooner than that) He will fling it on the scrap-heap and give you a new one.”

Don’t give up just yet. Dig your heels in if you need to. Do whatever it takes to make sure your dependence on Jesus grows more and more every day. In the end, we won’t regret it.

See, I will create

new heavens and a new earth.

The former things will not be remembered,

nor will they come to mind.

- Isaiah 65:17 NIV

Day 235: 1 Corinthians 15:1-28

“And if we have hope in Christ only for this life, we are the most miserable people in the world.” - 1 Corinthians 15:19 NLT

Have you ever met a truly miserable person? Maybe you’ve seen yourself in this kind of state. A miserable person is someone who has nothing to look forward to. It seems that this is one of the favorites of our enemy, the Devil. If he can get us to believe that tomorrow isn’t worth living, he feels as though he has won.

As Christians, we know that Jesus’ resurrection ensures that we will always have something better ahead of us. This is despite the painful circumstances we will face.

We know Jesus was raised, and we understand that this means we will one day be raised as well. We are assured of this because of our being united with Jesus when we came to faith initially (Romans 6:4-6).

The world may pity us because of our faith, but we can smile — because we know the truth. The empty tomb continues to be the proof.

Now the challenge is to share our salvation story with the world.

“We all announce that Christ died, was buried, and was raised. There is no Christianity without this affirmation.” - C.K. Barrett

Life is worth living. Jesus being alive is the evidence.

Day 234: 1 Corinthians 14:18-40

“For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints,” - 1 Corinthians 14:33 ESV

How is it that a worship service should be ordered? The church in Corinth was a hot mess of chaos each and every time they met. So, Paul lays out the purpose of these times of worship in verse 27: "Everything must be done so that the church may be built up." It is clear that chaotic Christian worship will not end in the encouragement of the believers, nor will it bring about the salvation of those who have yet to believe.

Even Paul's comment about women being silent in verse 34 is wrapped into this context. For the first time in this Greco-Roman world, women were treated as equals without any education. Of course, they had a plethora of questions to ask on Sundays, but these could be asked at a later time.

Some of us don't enjoy structure. It feels too tight and rigid. We need to remember that everything God has ever done was brought about with intention and not with haphazardness. He expects our times of worship to reflect His character.

This also assumes the incredible amount of importance Jesus lays on Christians assembling together regularly for organized worship. Corporate worship isn't optional for the followers of Jesus, and it needs to be fine-tuned, even if it takes some hard work.

"Life in the Spirit is not chaotic and disorderly. Vibrancy and order are not enemies but friends, and the gifts can be controlled since God himself is not a God of disorder, chaos and confusion, but of peace and order." - Schreiner, T. R. (2018). 1 Corinthians (E. J. Schnabel, Ed.; Vol. 7, pp. 295–296)

"God, we ask that all people be convicted of sin as we worship intentionally together. We pray that we all would fall down and worship you, exclaiming that You are in our midst. In Jesus' name, Amen."

Day 233: 1 Corinthians 14:1-17

“What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also.” - 1 Corinthians 14:15 ESV

Everything we do in a worship service needs to engage the mind. At no point does Paul encourage us to turn off our mental faculties and "let the Spirit lead" as we enter into spontaneous confusion.

For centuries, Hinduism has been preaching the importance of emptying our minds of all things to achieve nirvana, the highest spiritual state. Mind-zero isn't the goal of the Christian.

Sure, we engage our spirits (our deep breaths) with excitement and passion, but if our minds remain untapped, our experiences lack portability or substance. We will have nothing to translate into our actual lives as we try to shine bright in this world.

All of this teaching on tongues and prophecy may be confusing. Still, we have to remember how crucial it was to the early church, where the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) wouldn't be written for another ten years after Paul wrote this first letter to the Corinthians in around 53 AD.

What a blessing to be able to read the completed New Testament, to fill our spirits and minds to the brim as we burst forth in thoughtful and soul-refreshing praise.

"Rational prayer is not less spiritual than irrational." - C.K. Barrett

Day 232: 1 Corinthians 12:27-31, 13:1-13

"Love will last forever." - 1 Corinthians 13:8 NLT

One of the most cherished passages in the entire Bible is this one in 1 Corinthians 13. Yet you won't find a more challenging section in all of Scripture. All the facets of love do not come to us a la carte. We cannot commit to being patient without also keeping no record of wrongs.

So there are two questions that arise from this:

1. How are we ever going to live up to the standard love sets?

2. Isn't it risky to treat another flawed human being this way?

The answer to the first question is that we won't live up to the standard, at least on our own strength. God not only sets the standard for love (1 John 4:7-21), he also empowers us to start loving the way He does (Galatians 2:20).

In answering the second question, we need to know that to love someone else is to take all of the risks of them not reciprocating. Jesus saw this as a risk worth taking for us when He went to the cross. His sacrificial love is still saving nearly 2,000 years later!

So much in our world is failing. Not love. It stubbornly persists.

"Love is permanent; it never fails, where the verb commonly means ‘to fall’. It comes to be used with the meaning ‘collapse,’ ‘suffer ruin.’ Love will never suffer such a fate. ‘Many waters cannot quench love’ (Ct. 8:7)." - Leon Morris

Day 231: 1 Corinthians 12:1-26

“Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit.” - 1 Corinthians‬ ‭12:13‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Our culture is obsessed with rankings and comparisons. LeBron or Jordan? IU or Purdue? Chocolate or vanilla? Country or rock? So this naturally leads us to ask, “Who is the most important member of the local church I attend?” Definitely not a good question to ask.

Paul lays waste to this kind of thinking. There is, in fact, no ranking system in the body of Christ.  This was as revolutionary in the first century as it is today. For the first time in human history, a slave could be counted as equal in standing among the elite.

Today, our culture may say that all are created equal, but most don’t live and work that way.

The Church is a body. If you are a Christian, you are a member of that body, and you matter as much as anyone else. Actually, Paul says that if you think yourself insignificant (the weakest), you may be the most necessary.

The truth is that God doesn’t need us to be a part of His church — He wants us. Still, we do need each other. We need everyone to exercise their gifts.

"Individual members cannot contract out. The disputes at Corinth seem to have depressed some of the less gifted members of the church. They wondered whether they had any right to belong to so august a body, including as it did people with such wonderful and spectacular gifts. Paul gives encouragement to the lowly." - Morris, L. (1985). 1 Corinthians (Vol. 7, p. 169)

Day 230: 1 Corinthians 11:17-34

“That is why you should examine yourself before eating the bread and drinking the cup.” - 1 Corinthians‬ ‭11:28‬ ‭NLT‬‬

We are prone, as humans, to do things our own way. We rush here and there to satisfy the various desires and whims that come upon us. We claim that these feelings and urges are beyond our control. Slowing down doesn’t seem like much of an option for people as driven as we are.

Yet here we see that Paul encourages the Christians in Corinth to slow down, to show some self-restraint, when it came to how they were weekly remembering Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.

The preventative he offers is found in the word: Examine. It is the Greek word dokimazō. It can also mean to test or to try to determine the genuineness of something.

How much more of a focused time would we have while eating the bread and drinking the cup if we took this time to test ourselves? It is also a good idea to take this inventory into every day we face.

This may also remind us of Psalm 139:23-24: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.”

I love the following quote to close our time together today. May communion find an echo in our lives today and till our final day on earth.

"The eating and drinking at the Supper is not ritualistic and it must find an echo in the lives of believers. They need to consider whether their lives are in accord with the self-giving love of Jesus (cf. Lam. 3:40; 2 Cor. 13:5)." - Schreiner, T. R. (2018). 1 Corinthians (E. J. Schnabel, Ed.; Vol. 7, p. 246)

Day 229: 1 Corinthians 11:1-16

“Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God.” - 1 Corinthians‬ ‭11:11-12‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Our reading for today will most likely cause us to cringe and stare blankly at the words, wondering if we really did just read that in the Bible. Feminists everywhere recoil at the repressive language!

Yet, as we dig deeper, we see that Paul is, once again, working on moving the Corinthian church into a place of otherness (holiness) and mutual equality in a city that was confused in every way.

Through archaeological findings, it has been discovered that it was common for ancient Romans to cover their heads when performing a sacrifice.

In short, Paul is looking to communicate two main themes in this section:

1. Making a distinction between maleness and femaleness is good and purposeful. We celebrate and declare our differences.

2. Men and women are equal in value, even when it comes to our times of worship on Sundays. We need everyone in the room to play their part, and we don’t need the world’s advice on how to proceed.

We would do well to end our time together with this insightful comment on our passage by Ben Witherington: “I would suggest that Paul places little stock in social or cultural conventions or social status and a great deal of stock in the way God has made human beings and is remaking them in Christ.”

Day 228: 1 Corinthians 10:14-33

“Whatever you eat or drink or whatever you do, you must do all for the glory of God.” - 1 Corinthians 10:31

It is our fallen nature that makes us want to know our limits when it comes to living. What am I allowed to do as a Christian? What is definitively a sin? Why does my behavior have to affect someone else?

Yesterday’s reading had to do a lot with evangelism, what Paul was willing to do to reach those who had yet to say “yes” to Jesus. Today we see how we’re supposed to interact with fellow believers.

The fact of the matter is that none of us becomes Christians in isolation. When we confess Christ, we join one body. This “one body” is from every part of the globe, speaking various languages. Our worldwide family includes the socially elite and the outcasts.

So how are we to interact with each other? How will we know when we’ve become self-focused? What is the filter? Verses 24 and 31 are the key. The following question flows out of them: Is what I am about to do “for the glory of God” and “what is best” for the body of Christ?

For Paul, this was a simple decision. He was going to do whatever it took to gain influence for the sake of the many, "that they may be saved."

What sacrifices is God asking you to make today in order to reach more for Jesus' kingdom?

"Not to the glorification either of your own breadth of mind or your over-scrupulosity of conscience, but 'that God in all things may be glorified' (1 Pet. 4:11)." - Spence-Jones, H. D. M., ed. (1909). 1 Corinthians (p. 326)